r API call for json data and converting to dataframe - json

Question

I have tried to return a JSON response using an API call in RStudio. Its returning the desired JSON file in Postman but the httr API calls don't seem to be returning anything which I can parse into a dataframe.
This is the call in r using the httr package:
req <-
httr::POST("https://api2.elasticgrid.com/api/v1/analytics/vendor/partnerengagement/advanced/all",
httr::add_headers(
"Authorization" = "Bearer <long string>"
),
body = "VendorId=80&TimeFrame=AddMonths(-3)&Language=en-US",encode="json"
);
This returns a List of 10, but nothing useful and I am fairly sure the JSON content is not hiding in the list
I've tried:
js <- fromJSON(content(req,as="text"))
But, this is returning "An error has occurred"
or:
json <- httr::content(req, as = "parsed")
But this returns a non-discript key "7b 22 4d..."
This is the working API call in Postman (RAW HTTP version shown):
POST /api/v1/analytics/vendor/collateral/advanced/all HTTP/1.1
Host: api2.elasticgrid.com
Authorization: Bearer <long string>
Content-Type: application/json
Cache-Control: no-cache
Postman-Token: <token>
{
"VendorId": 80,
"TimeFrame": "AddMonths(-3)",
"Language": "en-US"
}
Can anyone point me in the right direction to parse a JSON into a dataframe based on an r API call. I've tried a few packages and resources already but am really not sure what to try next assuming this is possible.

Answer 1

The pblm might be coming from the API :
req <-
httr::POST("https://api2.elasticgrid.com/api/v1/analytics/vendor/partnerengagement/advanced/all",
httr::add_headers(
"Authorization" = "Bearer <long string>"
),
body = "VendorId=80&TimeFrame=AddMonths(-3)&Language=en-US",encode="json"
)
req$status_code
[1]500
The status code here indicates that the server is not responding well. You need to have a 200 here, which is the code for success. Check the Wikipedia page for more info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes
Is the call you provided the exact call you're making? If this is the case, you might want to check your call again. The API might need an access token to grant the access.
For what concerns your situation, the "7b 22 4d..." is a raw string. you can convert it with rawToChar.
Here's a simple workflow with a call on the haveIbeenpwned API.
#GET the url
req <- httr::GET("https://haveibeenpwned.com/api/v2/breachedaccount/test#example.com")
req$status_code
[1] 200
# extract req$content
cont <- req$content
cont
[1] 5b 7b 22 54 69 74 6c 65 22 3a 22 30 30 30 77 65 62 68 6f 73 74 22 2c 22 4e 61 6d 65
[29] 22 3a 22 30 30 30 77 65 62 68 6f 73 74 22 2c 22 44 6f 6d 61 69 6e 22 3a 22 30 30 30
[57] 77 65 62 68 6f 73 74 2e 63 6f 6d 22 2c 22 42 72 65 61 63 68 44 61 74 65 22 3a 22 32
[85] 30 31 35 2d 30 33 2d 30 31 22 2c 22 41 64 64 65 64 44 61 74 65 22 3a 22 32 30 31 35
[113] 2d 31 30 2d 32 36 54 32 33 3a 33 35 3a 34 35 5a 22 2c 22 4d 6f 64 69 66 69 65 64 44
[141] 61 74 65 22 3a 22 32 30 31 35 2d 31 30 2d 32 36 54 32 33 3a 33 35 3a 34 35 5a 22 2c
#Convert to char
char <- rawToChar(req$content)
char
[1] "[{\"Title\":\"000webhost\",\"Name\":
\"000webhost\",\"Domain\":\"000webhost.com\",
\"BreachDate\":\"2015-03-01\",\"AddedDate\":\""
...
#Convert to df
df <- jsonlite::fromJSON(char)
df
Title Name Domain BreachDate
1 000webhost 000webhost 000webhost.com 2015-03-01
2 Adobe Adobe adobe.com 2013-10-04
3 Bitcoin Talk BitcoinTalk bitcointalk.org 2015-05-22
4 BTC-E BTCE btc-e.com 2014-10-01
5 Dailymotion Dailymotion dailymotion.com 2016-10-20
6 Dropbox Dropbox dropbox.com 2012-07-01
...